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I usually save the prettiest layer for the top and thinly ice the cake.

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The cake

Round version

Six eggs, separated

Salt

Butter

2/3 cup vanilla sugar (you can use a vanilla bean to flavor the sugar but I just add a tablespoon of vanilla extract)

1 cup flour

My version (in case you mess up a layer or want thicker layers)

9 eggs

1 cup vanilla sugar (you can use a vanilla bean to flavor the sugar but I just add a tablespoon of vanilla extract)

1 ½ cups plus 1 tablespoon of flour

Butter

I use the amount of ingredients for the oblong cake, baking them in round cake pans, but I gave you both.

Prepare six 9 inch cake pans for baking: cut 6 circles of waxed paper to fit the bottom of the pans, grease the bottom of each one with butter, place the paper in and grease that as well. Set the pans aside until ready to use. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until foamy; continue beating until stiff peaks are formed. Set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks and the remaining sugar together until lemon-colored and very thick. About ¼ cup at a time, sift the flour on top of the egg yolk and sugar mixture and fold it in. mix a tablespoonful of eaten egg whites into the batter to lighten it, then gently fold in the rest of the whites. Keep a light touch throughout, handling the batter just enough to make sure it is evenly blended. Take a prepared pan and spread one-sixth of the batter on the bottom as evenly as possible.

I only have two round cake pans, so I usually put them in two at a time and it works out fine.

Let the batter touch the sides of the pan at several points. Place it in the middle of the preheated oven. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the cake hardens and begins to turn color. Remove from the pan with a spatula, invert and quickly but carefully tear off all the paper. Cool on a cake rack.

The cream filling

It calls for 6 ounces of semisweet baking chocolate, but I use the whole box which I think is 8 ounces?

3 tablespoons of strong coffee (my secret is get some flavored coffee like Raspberry or Tiramasu but I never told my mother-in-law) J

1 cup of salted butter (don’t use margarine for this one)

1 cup vanilla confectioner’s sugar (you can use a vanilla bean to flavor the sugar but I just add a tablespoon of vanilla extract)

3 eggs

Melt the chocolate with the coffee over very low heat. Cream the butter with the sugar and beat until fluffy. Add the melted chocolate and beat until it is well blended. Beat in eggs, one at a time and continue beating until the cream is light and fluffy. Keep in fridge until ready to use.

Kendra Prescott, a high-powered Atlanta real estate broker, is sent England to coax the owner to sell a beautiful cottage. Family portraits line the stairway, and Kendra finds one man, Benjamin Sheffield fascinating. Too bad he lived almost two centuries ago.

In eighteen sixty-three, Benjamin Sheffield escaped England because of a trumped up murder charge. He came to America to disappear in the vast Western frontier, but is delayed by a little thing called the War Between The States.

When Kendra falls and loses consciousness, she wakes up in the middle of Civil War torn Georgia. She doesn’t know what happened to the cottage, but when she sees Ben, she realizes he is the key, her only chance of returning to her own time. Trouble is, now that she’s met him, she isn’t sure she wants to.